Luciano Benavides has impressively completed stage 10 of the Dakar Rally as the second-fastest rider. Continuing his exceptional run of form in this second week of racing, the young Argentinian immediately pushed hard from his seventh-place start position, focusing intently on his navigation throughout the special. Putting in a superb ride to complete the 375-kilometre route just over two minutes down on the eventual stage winner, Luciano moves into 13th in the provisional overall standings.
The terrain that the riders faced on stage 10 was a mixture of sandy tracks, dirt roads, and a section of dunes – all coming together on what was a fast stage in terms of average speed – that collectively posed a huge challenge to all riders. With temperatures high in the desert, fatigue and focus was also an issue, with many of the event’s top riders making mistakes and subsequently losing time over the course of the special.
Overcoming the difficulties on today’s stage, Luciano showed great maturity and skill to take maximum advantage of his seventh-place start position and pushed his way up through the field to ultimately challenge for the stage win on his FR 450 Rally. Completing the gruelling special just two minutes and nine seconds behind winner Toby Price, Benavides now moves up to 13th in the provisional overall standings.
Setting off second for tomorrow’s 346-kilometre special on stage 11, and aiming to chase down and catch Price ahead of him, Luciano will be keen to further improve his overall placing before going into the rally’s final day.
Luciano Benavides: “I’m really pleased with my day today. It feels good to be right up there near the top and putting in the sort of results I know I’m capable of. I focused a lot on my navigation today, but there were still some tricky notes on the roadbook and some parts of the route were quite confusing. I made a couple of small mistakes, but the guys up front made mistakes too and it was possible for me to make up quite a lot of time over the whole stage. We have two days left now, so I’ll keep pushing and hopefully have a good, strong finish to the rally.”
2022 Dakar Rally – Stage 10 Provisional Classification
1. Toby Price (KTM) 3:05:32
2. Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna) 3:07:41
3. Adrien Van Beveren (Yamaha) 3:09:07
4. Lorenzo Santolino (Sherco) 3:11:12
5. Andrew Short (Yamaha) 3:12:01
6. Stefan Svitko (KTM) 3:12:01
2022 Dakar Rally – Overall Provisional Classification (after stage 10)
1. Adrien Van Beveren (Yamaha) 33:27:06
2. Sam Sunderland (GASGAS) 33:33:05
3. Pablo Quintanilla (Honda) 33:33:21
4. Matthias Walkner (KTM) 33:35:30
5. Joan Barreda (Honda) 33:37:53
6. Toby Price (KTM) 33:54:49
…
13. Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna) 34:16:17
